The Undine
by Adamantwrites
Summary: Joe sees a mysterious young woman in the swimming lake on the Ponderosa and is determined to meet her.


Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. All original characters and plots are the property of the author. No part of this story or the story in whole may be duplicated or reprinted w/o the express permission of the author. No copyright infringement is intended.

The Undine

The day was one of the hottest ones so far that summer and Joe Cartwright rode alone, his hat tilted to keep the afternoon sun out of his eyes. He judged it to be a little past noon and already scorching.

"Dang, it's hot, Cooch. Let's take a little detour and go to the swimming lake." Joe had been sent to town to retrieve the mail and to return immediately; Ben, his father, was expecting an important contract to arrive but Joe's shirt was soaked from sweat and the waistband of his pants was clammy with moisture along with the seat of his trousers. His paint pony, Cochise, was wet and slick with sweat as well and Joe knew that the saddle blanket would be soaked. He and Cochise could both use a nice dip in the lake to cool down.

Joe dismounted once they reached his favorite spot at the swimming lake. It was a lake on the property that wasn't far from the house. He and his brothers had always gone to swim and to fish there because there weren't too many boulders and the shoreline was lined with trees that provided shade. From one of the trees hung a thick knotted rope from which, when they were children, they would swing out over the lake and drop into the deep blue-green water. There also was no sudden drop off into deeper water but a gentle declination into the spring-fed lake. Joe quickly stripped down, rolling up his gun belt and placing it under a tree while he hung his shirt and pants over a small group of boulders to dry. Then, after removing the saddle but leaving on the bridle, he led Cochise into the lake until the horse stood with the water just at its underbelly,

Cochise immediately dipped his head and began to drink

"Enjoy yourself," Joe told the horse with a quick pat and then he dove into the water and the coolness encased him as he pushed himself along with his arms and feet. He opened his eyes and saw the trout that darted around him. Then he saw something larger a few yards in front of him. Although the sunlight cut through the water, Joe couldn't make out what it was but it was definitely not a fish. Joe shot to the surface for air and then dove back into the water, kicking his feet rapidly as he tried to find the object again. Then, out of his peripheral vision, he saw a white flash. He looked closer and there, about 10 yards to his side was a white blur in a human form. Joe turned in the water and he made out the supple, pale figure of a woman moving and rolling in the water. She reminded him of the otters he used to watch as they played in the Truckee River, so nimble and at ease in the water.

Joe was stunned at seeing a girl in the lake. He stopped and stared as well as he could in the blurry depths. She was obviously stripped of all clothing the same as he, and she had also stopped and was facing him, her long, blond hair floating around her as grasses would. She looked at him oddly and when Joe decided to move closer, the girl turned, undulating in the water, her arms at her side, and she began to swim rapidly away from him using the kicking of her feet to propel her. Joe, after coming up for another breath, took off after her but he lost her, she swam so rapidly. He rose to the surface, shaking his head to flick his wet hair out of his eyes and looked around the shore which was a good 20 yards away. And then he saw her. She was now leaving the water, running lightly, her long blond hair almost covering her buttocks and she took off into the trees; she was as white as a birch among the oaks and weeping willows along the bank.

"Hey," Joe called out, "Wait a minute." But the young woman turned and Joe saw her face framed by her hair and he caught his breath; she was lovely. Then she turned back and left him in the lake.

Once Joe made it to shore, he pulled on his trousers and tried to look for the young woman but he kept stepping on stones and other painful pieces of forest debris and soon gave up the chase. He wondered how she had managed to run through the forest so easily. And all the rest of the way home, Joe was puzzled as to whom the young woman was and from where she had come. And the thought of her white, supple body intrigued him.

That evening, as Adam played his guitar on the front porch, Joe went out to join him.

Adam looked up at his younger brother. "Any requests?" Adam ran his fingers over the strings and then sat. He knew that Joe wanted to talk.

"No, just wanted to ask you something."

"Ask."

"How come when you came back from helping those new homesteaders, you didn't tell me about their daughter?"

"I know you're young, but I didn't think you'd be interested in a six year old." Adam strummed his guitar for emphasis.

"Six year old? How old is the mother?" Joe had a terrible thought that maybe the svelte, young woman he saw was married and had a child.

"About thirty, I guess."

"A pretty blonde?"

"A brunette and none too attractive. But nice and can she ever bake a peach pie. The crust was so flaky and delicate that Hop Sing would be envious. Why?"

""Cause today at the swimming lake, I saw a girl, maybe eighteen or so, and she was swimming."

"Oh?" Adam raised his brows in curiosity. "Au naturale?"

"If that means without clothes, then yes, au naturale. And a very shapely and delightful naturale. But she took off into the forest and I never found out who she was."

"Probably for the best," Adam said, returning to his guitar. "In case your little water nymph sees you in town or at church, she won't be embarrassed-and neither will you."

"She didn't see much of me-well, except underwater but we weren't all that close to each other. All I could see was kinda a shadowy shape."

"Oh," Adam said. "too bad. I haven't been swimming in a long time. And it has been hot lately. Maybe I'll go take a dip tomorrow." Adam laid his palm flat against the strings to quiet them. "What time of day was it, again?"

"I didn't say and I'm sure as hell not telling you." Joe walked past Adam who chuckled and then went back to his guitar and Joe could hear Adam playing and singing. And Joe knew that Adam had chosen the song just for him to hear:

_"The water is wide and I can't cross over_  
_And neither have I wings to fly,_  
_Build me a boat that can carry two_  
_And both shall row, my love and I…"_

Joe kept looking up at the sun as he tried to judge the time of day. Finally, he leaned on his shovel and asked Adam what time it was. Adam paused from digging up the rotted tree stump and pulled out his pocket watch.

"It's 12:40. Why?"

Joe lay down the shovel he had been holding. "I just have something to do. I'll be back in about an hour."

"Maybe I should go with you. Wouldn't want you to drown looking into a pretty girl's eyes," Adam said, with a wry grin.

Joe blushed and Adam laughed. Joe started to leave and Hoss, who was working on another stump with a ranch hand, looked up.

"Joe! Where the hell do you think you're goin'?"

Joe looked at Adam as if pleading for silence.

"He's going on a little errand for me. Don't worry, Hoss. He'll be back just as soon as we're finished with the hard, back-breaking labor." Adam looked up at Joe and gave him a quick wink.

"Thanks," Joe said and mounted Cochise who had been cropping grass and took off for the swimming lake.

Joe sat at the side of the lake under a tree, wearing only his trousers; he wanted to be prepared to go into the lake. He guessed that he had been waiting about an hour and a half-maybe more-and she had yet to show. The lake was large but not so large that he couldn't see if anyone, no matter even if it was on the opposite side, was entering the lake.

Joe gazed out at the glistening water and saw a female's head rise to the surface and a face look upward at the sky. Joe stood up; how the girl had entered the water, he didn't know, didn't care except that she was there.

Joe quickly shucked his trouser, balancing awkwardly on one foot and then the other to pull them off.

"Hey!" Joe called out as he entered the water. "Hey!" The girl turned to see him and then Joe saw the sun glisten off her white flank as she jackknifed into the water and her delicate feet were the last to disappear below the surface. "Damn," Joe said. He dove into the chest-deep water and began to swim out to the center of the lake where he had seen her but Joe knew that she might not be there-she had a head start on avoiding him.

Joe came up to the top for air a few times and would scan the surface of the lake but saw no disturbances on the smooth surface.

"She must have left while I was underwater," Joe thought and just as he was about to swim back to shore, about ten feet from him, she surfaced in front of him, her bright blonde hair wet about her shoulders, drops of water like diamonds on her face and breasts. She tread water in front of Joe, her round arms moving gently to keep her straight and upright, slightly bobbing.

"Well," Joe said. "I must say that you swim like a fish. I've had the hardest time keeping up with you."

"Why do you want to? Why are you pursuing me?"

Joe was mesmerized by her beauty; she seemed to belong in this element with her hair wet and floating about her and her eyes as blue as the water surrounding her.

"I just wanted to meet you-you intrigue me. And up close, you're even more beautiful than I had imagined."

She looked at him oddly and moved closer. Joe held his breath; it appeared that she was going to touch him-and she did. With a small, elegant hand, she stroked his cheek and then felt his tousled hair.

"Are you beautiful?" she asked.

"I don't think so," Joe said.

"Then what is beautiful?"

Joe would have thought that she was teasing him, making fun of him except that her eyes were serious and seemed to turn a darker blue.

"Beautiful is…well, when something pleases you by the way it looks, when you have a feeling that any change in the shape or form of it would be an insult, then that thing is beautiful. It causes feelings in the pit of your stomach that…the sky is beautiful. Willow trees are beautiful and geese and the water…all those things are beautiful including you."

She smiled at him. "You're beautiful, yes?"

She had moved so close that Joe could feel the turmoil in the water that was caused by her moving feet. Joe wanted to reach out and grab her, to pull her next to him and kiss her but knew that she could easily out-swim him if she pulled away and he didn't want to lose her.

"Well, I don't know about that," Joe said, "but I do know that you are. What's your name?" She smiled at him coyly and Joe moved a bit closer. Then he heard a small splash of water behind him and he turned his head and saw another young woman, also seventeen or eighteen as well, rise out of the water. She had bold green eyes, eyes the color of the ocean in the San Francisco harbor and her hair was a slightly darker blond than the other girl's. Another splash occurred at his right and he twirled in the water to see an equally beautiful girl who had risen from the depths. Her hair was more of a russet and her eyes were a stormy gray yet her mysterious smile was beguiling.

"These are my sisters," the first girl said. "And we want you to come with us since you are a man." She stretched her hands out in the water and Joe saw the top of her breasts rise in the water.

"Yes," the gray-eyed one said in a sing-song voice, "come with us. We want you to be with us, to live with us." Her long, supple arms embraced him and he felt her smooth skin against his, clouding his thinking. Joe felt a soft pair of hands run over his body beneath the water and the green-eyed girl with an equaling bewitching smile crooned to Joe to come with them-they would lead him to an eternal life of delight and pleasures.

Joe felt drunk from the gentle, clean breath that came of them, the scent of water and fresh air and the undulation of the water as they bobbed and moved hypnotized him. And their voices-as seductive and lulling as the lapping of the lake water against the shore. And just as water eventually wears down the most adamantine stone, so the three sisters wore down his will and he had none of his own anymore. Joe gave himself over to them.

They grabbed him, held on to Joe, cooing over his beauty, his hair, his eyes and they ran their hands over his muscles and his abdomen. One dove under the water and ran her hands down his legs and over his feet before rising to the surface again.

"Oh, lovely, lovely," one said.

"The mouth. Look, sisters, at his mouth."

"So this is a man?" one said. "Why were we afraid of them?"

"Let's take him, sisters. We will share as we do with all things."

Hoss and Adam rode up to the shore of the swimming lake where Cochise was tethered. Adam had become concerned after Joe didn't return within a reasonable time.

"Well," Hoss said, sitting on his horse, "there's his clothes but I can't see Joe." Hoss looked out over the lake alongside Adam who scanned the water as well.

"Look, Hoss," Adam said, rising in his stirrups to see better. "Look, over there." Adam pointed and Hoss tried to see but the angle of the sun as it reflected off the water really prevented either of them from seeing clearly-they both had to squint and Hoss agreed that he saw something out in the water. And then it was gone.

Adam dismounted, throwing off his hat and pulling off his boots. He then ran out into the lake and then dove and swam as quickly as he could out to the spot where he had last seen what he could have sworn was four heads and shoulders above the water. "You're losing your mind, boy," he told himself but continued to swim as hard as he could, his lungs burning with the effort of taking as few gulps of air as possible.

Judging from the distance from the opposite shore, Adam decided that he had last seen Joe at that spot and he dove below the surface. He came up two more times at different spots and by this time, Hoss had taken off his boots and was waist high in the water, waiting for Adam to rise again. But he didn't and Hoss cursed but just as he was about to head off into the water and try his best to rescue his older brother, Adam came to the surface. Hoss squinted and made out that it was Adam and that he seemed to be pulling something with him, his arm crooked around a person's neck and chest. "Joe," Hoss whispered to himself. "Adam's got Joe.

Eventually, Adam brought Joe close to the shore and Hoss swam out to pull Joe in the rest of the way. Adam and Hoss, as exhausted as Adam was, pounded on Joe's back as they held him face down until he coughed and water came from his throat. Joe gasped for breath and both Adam and Hoss after laying Joe down, sat on the grass, weak with relief.

"Damn, Joe" Hoss said. "Don't never go swimming' alone no more. Iffen Adam hadn't become worried, you'd be a goner."

Doctor Martin came down the stairs and Adam and Hoss as well as Ben looked up at him, their faces questioning.

"A little water-logged but he'll be fine," the doctor said. "Just let him rest; he's a bit delusional but when the body and mind have been starved of oxygen for a while, well, things like that happen. Our minds are peculiar things. They can make us believe things that aren't real."

"Is it all right if I go see him?" Adam asked standing up.

"Sure," the doctor said, "I think he'd like to see you. He talked about you. Kept trying to tell me some cockamamie story."

Adam nodded and walked up the stairs and knocked on Joe's door before he entered.

"How're you doing?"

"Okay."

"Well, you tried your best to drown-sorry that I had to stop you." Adam knew that Joe wanted to say something-he looked at Adam, almost pleadingly.

"Adam, you know that girl at the lake I told you about?"

"Yeah."

"She and her sisters, well, they wanted me to go with them. Adam, I wanted to go with them. They live in the water and when they were taking me with them, Adam, I could breathe in the water. I could." Adam said nothing. "You believe me, don't you?"

"I believe that you believe it."

"Adam, they were real. They were beautiful and…and…Adam, they could move in the water like fish do. And when I was with them, well, I was alive in that element. Adam, it was wonderful!"

"You know, Joe, sometimes, when we're under stress, we think we see things, even feel things that aren't real. Remember how imaginative you were as a child? Well…" Adam turned away. Joe's eyes were so trusting but he couldn't, wouldn't tell what he had experienced, wouldn't corroborate Joe's story.

"But, Adam, you must have…" Joe stopped. Adam turned and looked at him. "You saw them, Adam. You grabbed my wrists away from them. I remember it. You grabbed one of them by the waist and pulled her away. And that's when I couldn't breathe anymore-once their hands were off me, I couldn't breathe anymore. You saw them, didn't you, Adam?"

"No, Joe. I didn't see anyone but you." Adam's face was stiff.

"But the girls-what are those girls called who live in water? It was about the elements of nature. What was that word? You told me a story about them once." Joe had sat up in bed. The girls were real, Joe was sure that they were real. Adam looked at Joe and suddenly caught his breath with a slight shudder as if he had broken to the surface of a lake after almost drowning.

"Undines."

"Yes, undines. They want to marry humans to get a soul. I remember the story you told me."

"And that's what caused the delusions when you were drowning." Adam offered the rational explanation. It had to have a rational explanation.

"No. I saw them. I touched them. I did, Adam. They were real. As real as you standing there in front of me. As real as this bed and this house. They were real."

"You need to rest," Adam said. "you need to get some sleep." Adam left Joe's room and hurried down the stairs. "They were products of our imaginations," Adam thought, "delusions. We just both had the same delusion. That's what happened. That's it. My mind was ready to think that after what had told me about a girl in the lake. That's the explanation. It has to be."

And Adam sat on the settee and picked up a book of poetry he had been reading. He opened it, looked at it and then closed the book and tossed it into the fireplace.

"Why'd you do that?" Hoss said.

"I need to stop reading for a while. Tell you what, Hoss. Joe will be okay here with Pa and Hop Sing. Let's you and I go into town and celebrate saving Joe from-grasping females. What about it?"

"Sounds good to me," Hoss said, walking over to the credenza and putting on his hat. And the two brothers picked up their gun belts and strapping them on, walked out into the evening air.

"This is real," Adam thought looking around as his father waved goodbye to Dr. Martin. The house was solid, the ground was solid and so was the hitching post and the warmth of his horse along with the solidity of the stirrups and the saddle. Yes, this was real. He was awake and alive and the blood pumped through his veins and the air filled his lungs.

But he still worried about what he had seen-or not seen and only thought he had. And he kept visualizing the long, floating hair like sea grass, the white limbs and the supple movements of svelte, twisting bodies. He saw angry eyes as he pulled Joe from their grasping hands, as he fought to wrench his brother free.

But Adam knew these images would fade-they would eventually melt away and only rarely show up in his dreams-in dreams that he was drowning in the dark depths of gray water pulled down by the seduction of promised delights..

~Finis~


End file.
